Production and Technical Credits

It was good news / bad news for Saw III. Good news: Not only was it the best new release it also top the overall rental charts with $7.62 million. Bad news: That was down significantly from Saw II's debut last year.
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2007 continues its slow start with little in the way of quality first run releases.
The only one that is worth picking up is The Protector - Buy from Amazon, but the quality of the movie is a little low for it to be DVD Pick of the Week.
On the TV on DVD front the best of the best was Doctor Who - The Complete Second Series - Buy from Amazon, but here the price is a little high, which lowers its appeal.
To find the DVD Pick of the Week you have to dig really deep and come up with Purgatory House, which can be purchased through Amazon or direct from their official site.
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The weekend box office was a little softer that expected, but not so much so that one needs to worry about a continuing slump.
In fact, the overall box office hit $100 million over the weekend and that was slightly higher than last weekend (by slightly, I mean less than 1%).
However, that was up a huge 12.1% from the same weekend last year and that is the much more significant number.
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This week we have three films opening wide. Not only are they opening wide, but they are all opening at saturation levels (3000 or more theatres).
Fortunately, the three films share little in the way of target demographics, but even so, at least one of them is going to be squeezed out by the competition.
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The weekend numbers were mixed, with more films beating expectations than not, but overall business still weak.
Granted, the total box office hit $98 million over the weekend and that was up a huge 25.9% over last weekend, but more importantly this was still 2.1% lower than the same weekend last year.
Hopefully this coming weekend will perform better, helping 2006 end its mini-slump against 2005.
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The September dumping ground continues this weekend with only one real wide release with the other three new films opening in 1,500 to 2,100 theatres.
On the other hand, the one film that is opening wide has a shot at becoming the biggest film of the month.
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Not a single film in the top five beat expectations by any significant margin.
Even so, with the terrible result last weekend the overall box office was still able to rebound a little, up 7.7% to $78 million.
However, that was still 9.0% lower than the same weekend last year.
So far the fall season has not kept up the winning ways we saw throughout the summer, but 2006 still has a bit of time to turn things around before we need to worry again.
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High quantity on sites this week, but many of them were for new releases, most of which haven't had any updates in a while. Those that did have updates were generally quite small, but one site stood above them all, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny - Official Site, which is easily the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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With the football season just under way, it seems the NFL is the biggest hurdle for new movies to overcome.
This is especially true for the odds-on favorite, Gridiron Gang, but all the films playing this weekend will have to deal with divided attentions.
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This week our ongoing box office prediction contest focuses on gangs. In order to win, you must predict the opening weekend box office for Gridiron Gang. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday), without going over will win Dead Man's Shoes on DVD. While the person who comes the closest to the film's opening 3-day weekend (Friday to Sunday, without going under, will win District B13 on DVD. Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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I've said it before and I'll say it again, September is the worst month of the year for movies.
Not only are there usually very few hits released at this time of year, but the average is dragged way down by the large number of movies simply dumped on the market.
This year the September dumping ground doesn't look quite as bad as years past.
In fact, several low-level hits and maybe even an Oscar contender are opening wide.
However, those few bright spots will be buried due to the sheer number of releases -- an average of 3 and a half films are opening wide each week.
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It was a good week for movie sites, although it's hard to tell looking just at the number of sites featured here. However, while the numbers of sites is low, the quality is very high with three sites in the running for the Weekly Website Award, (four if you include Casino Royale - Official Site, which I preemptively gave the award to when the placeholder site went live). Both The Break-Up - Official Site and Pulse - Official Site were also in the running, but in the end I went with See No Evil - Official Site. However, I expect the other two sites to win the award in later weeks.
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are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.